Victorian gaming regulator says it is not asleep at the wheel over Crown Resorts’ failures

Victoria’s gaming regulator has defended its track record in overseeing Crown’s flagship Melbourne casino.

Opposition gaming spokeswoman Steph Ryan says you can’t overhaul a regulator before you understand its failings. (AAP Image/James Ross)

Victoria’s gaming regulator has fiercely rejected claims that it has failed to do its job in overseeing the state’s only casino, Crown Melbourne, as revelations of criminal infiltration and underpaying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes plague the sprawling complex.

Victoria’s opposition has called for yet another inquiry into Crown’s Melbourne casino, which opened 27 years ago under Jeff Kennett’s Liberal government. It comes as the James Packer-backed company is the target of two royal commissions, in Victoria and Western Australia, following NSW’s explosive Bergin inquiry last year.

But opposition gaming spokeswoman Steph Ryan said there were “obvious gaps” in the royal commission Premier Dan Andrews had established to probe criminal infiltration at Crown Melbourne and whether the company was suitable to continue to hold the state’s only casino licence.

Ms Ryan was particularly concerned about media reports that the VCGLR did not heed gaming inspector concerns about organised crime infiltrating the casino.

“The concern is that it (the VCGLR) hasn’t been doing its job,” Ms Ryan said.

“When you’ve got evidence from former gaming inspectors, saying that they felt blocked by the regulator from following concerns around drug dealing, junket operators, money laundering, loan sharking, then you can come to no other conclusion that the regulator hasn’t been doing its job.”

But the VCGLR rejected that claim, stating the explosive revelations engulfing Crown were the fault of the company – not the regulator – and ignored a raft of disciplinary actions the VCGLR had taken against the company.

This included fining the company $1m earlier this year after it was revealed by the NSW Bergin inquiry that Crown had turned a blind eye to money laundering being conducted through junket tour operators.

“We reject the statement that we have not ‘done our job’ as it fails to have any regard to the investigatory and enforcement action we have taken,” a VCGLR spokeswoman said.

The opposition, a coalition led by Liberal MP Michael O’Brien, will seek to establish a parliamentary committee to investigate the VCGLR’s conduct.

Crown is already fronting two royal commissions, in Victoria and WA. At the Victorian commission, it has been revealed that Crown has potentially underpaid more than $270m in taxes, risking its suitability to run its marquee Southbank casino.

But Ms Ryan said she did not believe the current Victorian royal commission – headed by former federal court judge Ray Finkelstein – was sufficient to examine the VCGLR’s conduct.

“It was always a very obvious gap in the terms of reference of the royal commission. The Andrews government has been very careful to point the royal commission at Crown, rather than at its own interactions with Crown.

“And that is just as big a part of the story here – the issue of Crown failings, or the issue of Crown alleged criminal conduct. But there’s also the issue of how was that ­allowed to occur.

“The terms of reference are not sufficient for the conduct of the VCGLR to be examined. That’s evident in the very fact that the CEO of the VCGLR has not been called before the royal commission, the director of licensing has not been called, nobody from the Department of Justice, which oversees the regulator, has been called, nobody from the Department of Treasury and Finance and no one from the Department of Premier and Cabinet.”

Mr Andrews said he was prepared to “rip up” Crown’s licence to run its Melbourne casino when he announced the royal commission in February and would bolster the regulator.

Meanwhile Mr Kennett, whose government oversaw Crown’s opening 27 years ago, said he expected the commission to be more forensic than the Victorian government’s inquiry into its botched hotel quarantine scheme that ­fuelled the state’s second Covid-19 wave and 800 deaths.

But Ms Ryan questioned how you could strengthen a regulator when it was not understood how it failed in the first place.

“How can you overhaul a regulator when you don’t actually don’t acknowledge that there are problems with the regulator?”

The VCGLR’s spokeswoman said the three inquiries into Crown’s suitability to hold casino licences in Victoria, NSW and Western Australia were “failures of the casino operator and licensee”.

“We have undertaken and continue to undertake complex and extensive investigations into the Melbourne casino,” the spokesman said.

The spokeswoman said it was the VCGLR that alerted police to the ‘blue bag incident’, which involved a man using a blue cooler bag packed with $50 and $100 notes to launder money through the Melbourne casino.

“In February 2021, we also completed our comprehensive investigation into the detention and arrests of Crown staff in China. A redacted version of our Crown China report is available on the royal commission’s website.

“In April 2021, we took disciplinary action against Crown Melbourne and issued them with a $1m fine, maximum penalty allowed under the Casino Control Act 1991, and banned junket operations due to Crown’s failure to implement a robust process to ensure the probity of junket entities it engaged with.

“We proactively publish enforcement information and outcomes on our website, including in relation to the casino operator.”

Last December - well after the Bergin inquiry - Victorian Gaming Minister Melissa Horne defended the conduct of the VCGLR, describing it as “incredibly thorough” and “robust”.

“They have conducted more than 1100 audits of the casino operations. They have had people stationed down there in the casino,” Ms Horne told budget estimates.

“They have also, too, taken some disciplinary action in relation to a number of providers.

“Setting up a casino review is a time-consuming and intensive task. So to be able to ensure that they have got the appropriate resources to do that, along with all the other work that they are doing, particularly as venues are just restarting after the pandemic, it is important to resource them properly.”